Riders play 2 games -Forks, Fitness Models, Shoot a puck Soldier of Hockey Fortune Ill shut up

Two Games 
The Grand Forks Border Bruins are in Fernie Friday night for their one and only game here at the Memorial. The Ghostriders will play in Grand Forks December 7^th.

Grand Forks has a 5-6 record and won both of their games in overtime last weekend, 6-5 at home against Beaver Valley and 2-1 in Spokane. Their top scorer is a still 16yrs old Max Newton 97 with 16 points in 11 games. The Bruins new Head Coach and GM is Brad Snyder, he’s from Flin Flon Manitoba and once coached the Flin Flon Bombers

The Kelowna Chiefs are in town for their one and only visit to Fernie on Saturday night. The Ghostriders played their only game in Kelowna on September 19^th where they won by a 7-1 score. Kelowna’s Head Coach is Jason Tansem who is in his first season as the head guy.

Kelowna plays in Creston Friday then are in in Kimberley Sunday afternoon. Kelowna defeated Princeton 5-3 in Princeton last Friday and beat Columbia Valley 5-4 in OT in Kelowna last Saturday. The Chiefs have a 4-4-1-0 record and sit in third place in their division. Their top scorer is Jonathan Lee with 17 points, he’s is tied for the KIJHL’s top scorer. They also have Ethan Rusnack who was in Creston last season but was traded last summer and has 15 points so far, he had 36 in 39 games last season, Creston-  too many 94’s?

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How to make friends and influence rivalries 

The Ghostriders earned three of a possible four points last weekend. They lost 7-6 in overtime in Golden on Friday then they won 5-3 at home against the Summerland Steam on Saturday. The Steam were a nice team to watch with good mobile and talented players and I wish they played here more often… but their fitness level wasn’t that great… ha-ha quit howling you Steamer’s, read the next story. 

Round’ the League
Kimberley shut out Summerland 3-0 in Kimberley last Friday and the Dynamiters were a perfect 6-0… they lost 6-2 in Golden the next night. The moral of the story, the Rockets are for real, and Dynamite sometimes blows up. Well maybe not, … actually, the truth is that the Nitro’s, who constantly brag in the newspaper about their fitness levels are probably in just as  poor of shape as the Ghostriders who lost in Golden in OT after a fluke puck hit a Rider skate and went in their own net the night before. 

Here’s what Golden Coach Ty Davidson had to say about Fernie’s fitness levels, and the rest of the league as well. "Quite simply, we're in better shape than (Fernie)," Davidson opined. "I fail to see if there is any team in our league that works as hard as we do off the ice and in practices."

Well that won’t motivate the other teams to give a little extra to win vs the Golden fitness models eh…shoot a puck at'm Rockets  Read the full story here

 In other news, Osoyoos remains the only unbeaten team and were 10-0 after last weekend. Released Rider Aidan Geiger surfaced in Nelson and scored a game winner in OT in his first game. Colby Burns didn’t report to Sicamous after a trade but is listed on their reserve roster.

Kill em all, let the hockey gods shoot em out… An old Soldier of Hockey Fortune saying... what?

When a game ended in a tie last week the twitter-verse  exploded with several fans and a few players saying it was a buzz kill and the KIJHL should bring back the shootout. Personally I like the 4 on 4 and 3 on 3, it’s more hockey like, but the fans who pay the freight seem to like the shootout… full 2 min PP’s for each team till someone scores is kinda like a shootout….I’ll shut up now.

Ghostrider Notebook

Eighteen yr. old left winger Josh McCulloch scored 2 in Golden then followed it up with 3 goals at home against Summerland and now leads the team in scoring with 10 goals and 3 assists in 8 games. He was also the Coaches pick for the Boston Pizza September Player of the Month.  

After the weekend McCulloch was in second place in KIJHL goal scoring, only Ian Chrystal was ahead of him with 11 goals. Quite the transformation for 20 yr old Ian Chrystal  who only had 10 points last year and was known for other things besides scoring. Check out his pic here.

The Ghostriders welcome Jason Yan to the team, he was a late cut from the Jr A Calgary Canucks and played with Josh McCulloch last year.

With 1 goal and 3 assists in 51 games last season Travis Thomsen was known mostly as a rock solid stay at home defenseman. But this year with 2 goals and 6 points in 8 games the pucks are going in… and when you get in a groove like that you get the bounces like on Saturday when he hit the boards with a shot that came back and hit the goalie and went in. Buy a lottery ticket Travis.

When McCulloch scored 3 against Summerland last Saturday the Seam’s Paulson Lautard (16 points) also scored 3, those two guys scored 6 of the 8 goals and were the show in that game.

Joel Burgess had 2 goals in Golden and is quickly climbing the scoring ladder with 5 goals and 8 points right behind Sam Plaquin who has 8 points in 8 games. Derek Georgopoulos has points in his last three games.

The injury bug

Dylan Robertson, Spencer Bender Kale Johnston Evan Reid and sniper Justin Peers all missed last week and are day to day with injuries. Bender and Robertson are probable for this weekend.